International Conference on Condensed Matter Physics

  International Conference on Condensed Matter Physics   Illinois and SLAC researchers use a new technique. One of the greatest mysteries in condensed matter physics is the exact relationship between charge order and superconductivity in cuprate superconductors. In superconductors, electrons move freely through the material—there is zero resistance when it’s cooled below its critical temperature. However, the cuprates simultaneously exhibit superconductivity and charge order in patterns of alternating stripes. This is paradoxical in that charge order describes areas of confined electrons. How can superconductivity and charge order coexist? Now researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, collaborating with scientists at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, have shed new light on how these disparate states can exist adjacent to one another. Illinois Physics post-doctoral researcher Matteo Mitrano, Professor Peter Abbamonte, and their team applied a new x...

 International Conference on Condensed Matter Physics   A new phase of matter, thought to be understandable only using quantum physics, can be studied with far simpler classical methods. Researchers from the University of Cambridge used computer modeling to study potential new phases of matter known as prethermal discrete time crystals (DTCs). It was thought that the properties of prethermal DTCs were reliant on quantum physics: the strange laws ruling particles at the subatomic scale. However, the researchers found that a simpler approach, based on classical physics, can be used to understand these mysterious phenomena. Understanding these new phases of matter is a step forward towards the control of complex many-body systems, a long-standing goal with various potential applications, such as simulations of complex quantum networks. The results are reported in two joint papers in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review B. When we discover something new, whether it’s a...

  International Conference on Condensed Matter Physics A hybrid matter­­–antimatter helium  atom  containing an antiproton, the proton’s antimatter equivalent, in place of an electron has an unexpected response to laser light when immersed in superfluid helium, reports the  ASACUSA  collaboration at  CERN . The result, described in a paper published on March 16, 2022, in the journal  Nature , may open doors to several lines of research. Our study suggests that hybrid matter–antimatter helium atoms could be used beyond particle physics, in particular in condensed-matter physics and perhaps even in astrophysics experiments,” says ASACUSA co-spokesperson Masaki Hori. “We have arguably made the first step in using antiprotons to study condensed matter.” The ASACUSA collaboration is well used to making hybrid matter–antimatter helium atoms to  determine  the antiproton’s mass and compare it with that of the proton. These hybrid atoms contain an an...

  International Conference on Condensed Matter Physics The way electrons interact with photons of light is a key part of many modern technologies, from lasers to solar panels to LEDs. But the interaction is inherently a weak one because of a major mismatch in scale: A wavelength of visible light is about 1,000 times larger than an electron, so the way the two things affect each other is limited by that disparity. Now, researchers at MIT and elsewhere have come up with an innovative way to make much stronger interactions between photons and electrons possible, in the process producing a hundredfold increase in the emission of light from a phenomenon called Smith-Purcell radiation. The finding has potential implications for both commercial applications and fundamental scientific research, although it will require more years of research to make it practical. The findings have been published in the journal Nature, in a paper by MIT postdocs Yi Yang (now an assistant professor at the Un...

  International Conference on Condensed Matter Physics  Cells are expert cooperators and collaborators. To maintain tissue health, cells talk to each other, exert pressure on each other, and kick out cells that are not contributing to the overall well-being of the collective. When it's time to get rid of a cell, the collective group initiates a process called cell extrusion. Cells can be extruded for a number of reasons—they could be cancerous, or old, or they simply could be overcrowding other cells. Extrusion is a necessary process for tissues to maintain health and integrity. Biologists have long studied the biochemical cues and signals that underly cell extrusion, but the mechanical, physical forces involved are poorly understood. Now, inspired by the mechanics of a phase of matter called liquid crystals, researchers have developed the first three-dimensional model of a layer of cells and the extrusion behavior that emerges from their physical interactions. From this new m...

  International Conference on Condensed Matter Physics An improved take on an existing approach provides intramolecular imaging of molecules adsorbed on a solid surface at room temperature. The year of 1955 saw the first observation of individual atoms [ 1 ]. German physicist Erwin Wilhelm Müller and his student Kanwar Bahadur, from Pennsylvania State University, used a field ion microscope to image the atoms at the apex of a sharp tungsten needle held at liquid-nitrogen temperature. The real breakthrough in atom imaging, however, came more than 25 years later, with the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope in 1981 [ 2 ] and the related atomic force microscope in 1986 [ 3 ]. The development of these imaging devices has revolutionized our ability to study surfaces at the atomic level. Imaging single atoms adsorbed on solid surfaces using such microscopes is today a common practice. However, resolving the internal structure of an adsorbed molecule at room temperature has rem...

  International Conference on Condensed Matter Physics Calculations motivated by the successful prediction of the nickelate phase diagram suggest that palladates might hit the sweet spot for high-temperature superconductivity. Copper-based (cuprate) superconductors have long held the record for the highest superconducting critical temperature (Tc) at ambient pressure. In 2019, after decades of theoretical and experimental effort, researchers reported a nickel-based (nickelate) analog to cuprate superconductors (see Trend: Entering the Nickel Age of Superconductivity). Since then, others have sought to pinpoint the factors that control superconductivity in such single-orbital-dominated systems. Motoharu Kitatani of the University of Hyogo in Japan and his colleagues now identify some of these factors and suggest that swapping out nickel for palladium could deliver a material that superconducts at even higher temperatures than cuprate superconductors [ 1 ]. The study could help guide...

  International Conference on Condensed Matter Physics  Researchers from the Institute of Theoretical Physics (ITP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CA S) and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) have found that granular matter (such as sand) and some black hole models display similar nonlinear effects. The bridge between the two is the holographic duality. Holographic duality allows one to map unsolved physical problems to tractable higher-dimensional gravitational counterparts and vice versa. The mapping between different dimensions resembles the optical holographic projection technique, hence the name. Although the holographic duality originated from string theory and was part of the quest for a consistent theory of quantum gravity, it has also been widely applied to quantum chromodynamics, condensed matter physics, and quantum information. In this work, the idea of holographic duality is extended to a concrete type of athermal, disordered solids—granular materials. Sinc...